Antique & Vintage Postcards

A flotilla of white-hulled passenger steamers fans out across the Strömmen in this gorgeously tinted Edwardian postcard of Stockholm, taken from Slottsbacken (the Castle Hill slope) with the grand façade of the National Museum — completed 1866 — anchoring the left bank in warm terracotta stone; this is Stockholm at its imperial peak, the waterway thick with ferry traffic and the quays crowded with Sunday promenaders. Published by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, the city's most prestigious postcard house, as catalogue number 3101, this undivided-back card predates the 1907 international divided-back convention and carries the Swedish postal instruction "Adressen anbringas å denna sida" on a decoratively bordered reverse. The chromolithographic colour is exceptionally vivid, with the deep blue-green of the water, the cream of the steamers, and the rosy stone of the museum all perfectly balanced — exactly the kind of card Eliassons built its reputation on.